Star Wars and the Hero's Journey

Star Wars and the Hero’s JourneyIn “Star Wars: A New Hope” created by George Lucas, the elements of the movie are very similar to those of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces or “The hero’s journey”. This paper will describe how Lucas’s picture meets the elements departure, initiation, and return. Campbell describes all these elements in his book…the motivation for many of the themes and characters in that of Star Wars.

“The point in a person’s life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not,” (Campbell). This is how Joseph Campbell describes “The Call to Adventure”, the first step of departure. The movie that is Star Wars uses the element of departure through Luke Skywalker, the hero. When Luke’s aunt and uncle were killed by Imperial Army…this is when he is called to help the rebellion fight back. This is Luke’s “Call to Adventure”, which begins his departure as the hero on his journey.

The Initiation. According to Campbell the Initiation is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the person must undergo to begin the transformation,” (Campbell). In the case of George Lucas’s “Star Wars: A New Hope”, the person, Luke Skywalker, goes through 2 difficult tests. As the first test of Luke’s “initiation”, he has to try to use the force by defending himself with his light saber while “blindfolded”. He succeeds this test after a couple of tries, passing his first test. Towards the end of the film, Luke is past the challenge of destroying the death star, which he also passes with flying colors. These two challenges helped Skywalker pass his “initiation” towards saving the universe.

The last element of “the hero’s journey” is the return. After destroying the death star, Luke flies back to base and is greeted by everyone. Later in the movie, he receives a medal for his courageous acts. This symbolizes...

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Joseph Campbell, an American psychologist and mythological researcher, wrote a
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discovered many common patterns running through hero myths and stories from around the
world. Years of research lead Campbell to discover several basic stages that almost every heroquest goes through (no matter what culture the myth is a part of). He calls this common
structure “the monomyth.”
George Lucas, the creator of StarWars, claims that Campbell’s monomyth was the
inspiration for his groundbreaking films. Lucas also believes that StarWars is such a popular
saga because it taps into a timeless story-structure which has existed for thousands of years.
Many followers of Campbell have defined the stages of his monomyth in various ways,
sometimes supplying different names for certain stages. For this reason there are many
different versions of the Hero’sJourney that retain the same basic elements.
THE ORDINARY WORLD
Heroes exist in a world is considered ordinary or uneventful by those who live there.
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“arkhetupos” meaning exemplary or ideal;; an
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humanity
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copied
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- The Hero
- Great Mother
- Wise One
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- The Trickster
- The Betrayer
- The Destroyer
- The Rogue
- The Scoundrel
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- appeasement/sacrifice/atonement
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